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For the EU the real issue is whether they can succeed in stopping the UK from taking any competitive advantage once we leaveCredit:
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP

Although it gets harder to remember, eight months ago Article 50 was triggered, initiating the two-year period at the end of which the UK will leave the European Union.

With 16 months to go, one would have thought that time was of the essence and that both the UK and the EU would be heavily involved in discussing their future relationship. After all, after we leave, the UK will become the biggest export market for EU goods and services. In fact, when it comes to financial services alone, 60 per cent of the EU’s capital markets are run by British firms and UK banks provide loans equivalent to about 10 per cent of the EU’s entire economy.

Sadly, the EU has decided not to proceed with trade discussions but to divide the discussions into two quite artificial sections. I say artificial because if, as is oft repeated, nothing is decided until everything is decided, then we should have been engaged in parallel talks all this time.

The reason we are not is down to one simple reason: it is that the EU has been from the beginning determined to control the process in order to extract the greatest payment from the UK, while stopping the UK gaining any advantage from our departure.

The UK made a very generous offer to the EU explaining that the UK courts would uphold EU citizens' rights after Brexit

The Prime Minister, for laudable reasons, has been determined to start discussing a free-trade deal as soon as possible, but at every point she has been forced to deal with the EU’s rolling re-definition of what it takes to move to trade talks.

Let’s take EU citizens’ rights. The UK made a very generous offer to the EU explaining that the UK courts would uphold their rights after Brexit. However, in May the EU made a declaration that they wanted continued application of EU law, as well as application and interpretation of the other provisions of the agreement, including the catch‑all of authority to deal with unforeseen situations. To do this, they demanded the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) should be maintained.

In the autumn, the PM made a speech in Florence generously accepting that the UK would, during the implementation phase, continue to pay into the EU budget. That, Downing Street was informed, would unlock the trade talks. Instead, back they came saying, fine but we want more. Notwithstanding the further £20 billion added last week, there were no trade talks and yet further ramped demands from the Irish government on the Irish border and the EU on the ECJ.

Leo Varadkar and Theresa May: The Irish Government has further ramped up its demandsCredit:
Philip Toscano/PA

In an attempt to break the deadlock, and in desperation to achieve trade talks in December, the Government’s negotiators reached for that classic concept, much beloved of civil servants, “constructive ambiguity”. A form of words was applied to the Irish border. At first it was briefed that it applied only to Northern Ireland, that a deal guaranteeing “regulatory alignment” between the Province and the Republic had been agreed. But, as we know, the Democratic Unionist Party hadn’t agreed it and this brought the discussions to a halt.

Ministers and officials are now telling everyone that they shouldn’t worry – it would be about regulatory alignment between the UK and the EU. Not the same as convergence, they tried to explain, but they are wrong.

The EU wants us to commit to this form of words, of course, for they will use them against us if and when we ever get into trade talks. These words aren’t vague at all to the EU. Look, they will say, you have already agreed to align with us, all we need to discuss is who oversees any divergence. And there they have already got the answer: the ECJ.

This is, for example, what the Irish government maintain the UK was prepared to sign up to, which hadn’t been made clear previously: the UK maintaining full alignment with the internal market and customs union. I don’t think that sounds so vague.

For what becomes clearer by the day is that for the EU the real issue is whether they can succeed in stopping the UK from taking any competitive advantage once we leave

For beyond the border issue, we are even now about to employ constructive ambiguity over the role of the ECJ after Brexit. That we are contemplating a role for this court at all is bad enough, but the ambiguous idea that this will be voluntary referrals from our Supreme Court and governed by a sunset clause falls apart when you realise the ECJ is in effect being given the power to pass rules down to a supposed sovereign legal power, with no defined time limit at all. Ambiguity only feeds their sense of their control over these negotiations.

For what becomes clearer by the day is that for the EU the real issue is whether they can succeed in stopping the UK from taking any competitive advantage once we leave. That is why ambiguity will simply help them box us in in any future trade talks.

Perhaps this is best summed up in Through the Looking Glass – “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

The price the EU is demanding for trade talks is too high and we need to say that we are not prepared to be forced to damage our prospects by settling these issues before we discuss trade. That, or we will make other arrangements.